


Traces of You

by shutupeccles, vensre



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-15
Updated: 2010-11-15
Packaged: 2017-11-04 10:02:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/392599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shutupeccles/pseuds/shutupeccles, https://archiveofourown.org/users/vensre/pseuds/vensre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur wakes up in a parallel universe. Merlin brings him back by 'painting' Arthur's image on the rift between worlds with his magic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traces of You

**Author's Note:**

> After bountiful brainstorms bouncing back and forth  [](http://vensre.livejournal.com/profile)[**vensre**](http://vensre.livejournal.com/) and I came up with the following response to [](http://merlin-ficart.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://merlin-ficart.livejournal.com/)**merlin_ficart** 's second challenge. Artists could use any media. Authors were given a 500-2000 word count
> 
> Art by [](http://vensre.livejournal.com/profile)[**vensre**](http://vensre.livejournal.com/) and fic by self born from a combination of ideas we both had swirling through our noggins  
>  To view their fabulous drawing, please click [HERE](http://pics.livejournal.com/vensre/pic/001a164s)

 Merlin trembled as he huddled beside a dying camp fire. The movement ceased as he felt a familiar pressure against his back.

When he turned his head there was nothing there, particularly not the taut buttocks or muscular shoulder blades he expected to find. Only a thin dart formed from a sliver of bone; the Elf shot that pierced Arthur with cold flame before he vanished. Merlin could not bring himself to touch it.

How had this happened?

Where had Arthur disappeared to?

Merlin curved his arms around to touch the back of his shoulders and the unseen presence shifted as if tickled. He could hear a complaint of ‘your hands are cold’ in his memory’s poor imitation of Arthur’s rich timbred and irritated voice. The air quivered in front of him like a body rolling to stand.

“Arthur, where are you? Come back to me.”

Merlin turned about on the spot, refusing to turn his gaze from the unusually warm and wavering portion of air.

* * *

What? Where was he and how in Merlin’s daydreams did he get here?

The colours were wrong - some being muted, others unusually bright, many unfamiliar. The air was different too - gentle, clean and sweetly scented with a syrupy kind of...syrup flavour.

Oh marvellous, at the very least he’d lost his wits after one too many blows to the head. Arthur had secretly suspected it was bound to happen eventually.

Where was Merlin? He would be able to fix any boo-boos and reason away the inexplicable. True, whatever stories he invented were usually pathetic but they tended to be entertaining nonetheless and right now Arthur could do with a laugh at Merlin’s expense, if only to stop the creeping thought that perhaps, it was quite possible, that he was – dead.

Arthur anxiously explored his body with eyes and hands, breathing a sigh of relief once all the important bits were found to be present and correct. Unfortunately his clothes had been reduced to fine colourless ash by whatever phenomenon brought him here. This would be dreadfully embarrassing had another soul been present. He placed his right palm just left to the middle of his chest: _Heartbeat strong, definitely not dead then_.

A reassuringly familiar pressure at his back eased what remained of his panic. For some reason he expected deceptively strong, slender arms to begin sliding confidently around him and lips softly intimate against his neck as he was hauled backwards along whatever path he had taken to get here. The fact that he was thinking rubbish like that confused him further. Yet there was a distant memory of water, weight, betrayal and rescue that seemed to justify such an expectation.

His reverie was interrupted when a sensation like cool fingertips tickled his back. He shivered reflexively and his thoughts turned directly to Merlin. Merlin’s fingers were always slightly cool, even in midsummer. Merlin would be frantic if he was unaware of the whys and wherefores of Arthur’s arrival in this strange place. He fretted over Arthur like a distressed mother hen at times and Arthur found it rather annoying _. You know you like it_ a voice inside his head retorted smugly, the way only Merlin dared. ‘Shut up Idiot!’ he thought irritably and imagined Merlin’s silent yet knowing grin in reply.

He had to find his way back before Merlin did something magically stupid.

* * *

The swathe of warm air moved, an action felt rather than seen.

Merlin got to his feet and followed it.

* * *

This world, for want of a better noun, was deceptively similar to where he came from. There were the same grasses, flowers and trees but each one was limned with faint traces of a metallic sheen, as if they’d been permanently frosted with tiny shavings of copper, silver and gold rather than dew. Arthur expected the blades of grass to slash the bare soles of his feet to ribbons but they were soft, springing back to their original position after every tread. When he looked back it appeared undisturbed, as if no-one had passed through.

Arthur was torn between a yearning for someone to share this miracle with and the basic survival instinct telling him to get home before something with far too many teeth and claws than was good for him came along and decided to feast upon his naked limbs for breakfast. Things like that had a habit of showing up when he was least prepared to deal with them.

“Find me Merlin,” he murmured with unfamiliar desperation.

The words left his mouth and stretched to form a lacy tracing of his closest friend. The image was so delicate and beautiful his breath caught.

_Is that the truth of what I feel for him?_

Arthur experimented by repeating the phrase and substituting the names of others dear to him. Morgana’s outline was elegant but more robust and rather bossy overall; Gwen’s equally exquisite but pale and insubstantial by comparison; his father’s sharp yet inconsistent; Lancelot’s bold. The only one that came close to the perfection of Merlin’s was that of his mother.

What he learned made him reluctant to return. If Merlin discovered what was in Arthur’s heart he would despise him. He already showed little respect, positively no deference – even on those occasions when they deliberately marched toward death together.

**Together**

“I’m sorry Merlin.” Arthur stopped and raised a hand to his eyes as if by squinting and rubbing them he could avoid the threatening twist of heartache. Since Merlin’s arrival they seem to have gone through the best and worst of what life had to offer together.

He felt the air shift behind him, thought he saw a hand-shaped distortion reach out for him.

Trampling his multiple fears Arthur stretched forth his own hand to touch it.

* * *

Merlin felt ghostly fingers link with his and a rush of guarded affection travelled up his arm through the connection.

“Arthur!” he exclaimed joyously.

They had found each other. Now all he needed to do was bring him home.

But then the hand withdrew...

* * *

Arthur saw his name float toward him, ballooning out as the others had.

_I don’t look like that!_

Apparently from Merlin’s perspective, he looked precisely like that. _This sheds a different light on things._ He touched the vibrant caricature and a jolt carried in through his fingertip and out of the hand grasping Merlin’s through the strange boundary. He withdrew his hand, fearing the contact would hurt the one he loved - who as it happened loved him in return - or worse, bring him through. Then he saw the oddest thing: a perfect copy of his palm and fingers where they’d touched Merlin’s hovered in the air as though painted on glass.

More was added to the picture as he watched, as if Merlin were painting the rest of him from the other side. The process was fascinating, and a tad creepy. It wasn’t until the arm was complete and the adjoining shoulder began to take form that Arthur hoped Merlin had enough forethought to add some clothes to this mysterious portrait.

* * *

The phantom hand withdrew leaving a perfect imprint of Arthur’s in the air. Merlin examined it closely. It was so detailed he could see Arthur’s fingerprints. His fingertip tentatively touched the phenomenon and the colour changed from an almost greyscale washout effect to the natural colour of Arthur’s skin.

“Come home. Come home to me,” Merlin whispered as he retraced the imprint then extended the picture to include Arthur’s wrist, arm and shoulder, adding details as he went – a crease here, scar there, the tiny birthmark that Arthur was embarrassed by and Merlin wanted to touch, perhaps one day kiss.

No, Arthur did not think of him like that. He may consider Merlin an inconvenience, a servant and a friend but never a potential...Merlin could not finish that thought. Down that path lay confusion, contradiction and ultimately despair. He had controlled his affections thus far in order to protect them both and would continue to do so. He loved Arthur too much to put him in such a terrible position.

He could not remember what Arthur wore and he sensed accuracy was tantamount to success, so Merlin used his detailed knowledge of Arthur’s body with his magic as paint to create the most intimate portrait of his prince, using the invisible rift between two worlds as his canvas. Before long Merlin’s face grew warm and between his legs grew hard as he concentrated on how Arthur’s chest or thigh felt in order to get the proportions exact. He was leaving **those** parts of Arthur until almost last.

Blue eyes widened when faced with the prospect of exact proportions in those other areas and his own throbbed as his memory brought forth what detail it could. He had looked often enough but he had never, never touched.

 _Oh lord_.

He had to stop and self-administer some relief before he could continue. One hand was not slicing the roast very effectively, he needed both. One stroked, tugged and teased his irrepressible length while the other manipulated his sack so he could empty quickly and get back to work. The vision of Arthur’s member at face level while Merlin teased it into existence from nothing but memory brought him to the very edge of pleasure’s abyss, his toes curled over the edge. When his sadistically twisted mind suggested he **_lick_** , taste and ingest everything while Arthur was so conveniently placed...Merlin spurted thick, wet warmth and all ten fingers couldn’t contain his spillage.

Still breathing heavily and rather embarrassed, Merlin removed all evidence as quickly as possible before returning to the task of completing the Arthur shaped doorway home. He hoped their time was not limited.

* * *

Apparently Merlin did **not** think to add clothes.

Arthur was currently in two minds about that and unfortunately one of those minds was having very smutty thoughts indeed. _Hmm._ If his erection could have poked a hole through whatever boundary kept him trapped here Arthur would have been home in a jiffy. Make that half a jiffy and then hopefully into Merlin, or Merlin into him. He wasn’t sure which he’d prefer. They would have to try both ways at least once and then decide from there. _Hmm._

He hoped Merlin would hurry up. No he didn’t. If Merlin saw him like this...Arthur’s skin burned Pendragon red from soles to crown. Then he noticed Merlin seemed to have stopped before attending to a highly important part of Arthur’s anatomy. The part currently demanding immediate and thorough attention and quite loudly, figuratively speaking that is; thank Morgana’s heaving bosom this... _place_ wasn’t quite so disturbing as to have body parts talking to each other on top of all the other odd things. That would have been far too much to deal with.

There was only one thing for it.

Arthur did not muck about while mucking about with himself. Having a manservant, father and whatever Morgana was, who very rarely knocked before entering his chambers taught him to be rather efficient at getting himself off and presentable in a dishearteningly short amount of time.

* * *

Merlin deliberately left Arthur’s facial features for last, his glorious blue eyes especially. He didn’t want imaginary Arthur watching him fiddling about with his imaginary fiddly bits. The lips were done with all the fine wrinkles, lines and cracks when Merlin paused, his own less than an inch above them. He would barely have to bend in order to brush his lips against Arthur’s, open them slightly and... _Stop it Merlin_! It would be a terrible violation of trust and not at all the same. These lips only looked plump and full and deliciously, irresistibly kissable but were truly flat, empty nothingness; which was perhaps all Arthur would feel for him after this.

With a determined inhalation Merlin brought his gaze and one careful fingertip to the blank ovals in Arthur’s eyes...

* * *

The colours surrounding the strange painting began to shimmer and change to the familiar hues of home as Merlin coloured first one eye and then the other.

Arthur was astonished by how intimately Merlin knew him, even the bits they both knew full well Merlin didn’t know that well.

The caricature formed by Merlin calling his name through the boundary walked to the portrait, gestured to Arthur, aligned itself perfectly with Merlin’s artwork and vanished. Following the outline’s example, Arthur got into position and felt the painting or whatever it was mould to his skin like the warm meniscus that would cling and wrap around him as he emerged from a bath.

Arthur stepped though his portrait and into Merlin’s waiting arms.

* * *

The portrait didn’t ripple or bulge like Merlin expected when Arthur stepped through. Neither had he expected to be brought into a grateful embrace, kissed passionately and... _Oh my_!


End file.
